Now, though, we know a little bit more about the Xbox projector meant to turn your living room into a video game and it appears it won’t be arriving in your home any time soon.

Albert Penello, who leads the Xbox One product planning team, told Ausgamers that the idea is simply to expensive for today’s consumers.

“It’s very, very cool tech but it’s, like, for a consumer, it requires projectors and things,” he told Ausgamers. “It’s really super-neat if you’re in the lab and you’ve got Microsoft money and you could totally set up this awesome lab, but… we looked at it, but for an average customer it’s, like, thousands of dollars [for the set up].”

In April, the Redmond software giant released a five-minute video explaining more about IllumiRoom, a proof-of-concept prototype that uses a projector and Kinect for Windows to extend gameplay beyond the television set to the entire room.

With IllumiRoom, games can suddenly come out of your television screen and take up your living room. That means grenades and other markers can show up outside of the TV and your walls can turn different colors or rattle.

The company also released a 10-page research report in April titled “IllumiRoom: Peripheral Projected Illusions for Interactive Experiences,” which includes feedback from 10 gamers and 15 game designers.

From the report:

“Peripheral projected illusions can change the appearance of the room, induce apparent motion, extend the field of view, and enable entirely new physical gaming experiences.”

The report also hints at possibilities beyond gaming, which opens up a whole new can of worms:

“Another promising direction is to further explore illusions specifically for video content (e.g. TV shows or full length feature films). Authoring such content is a challenge, but it could enable unique viewing experiences. Can a grenade from the latest Bond film explode in your living room? How would such content be authored? It would be important to investigate how the movie director should deal with the fixed nature of a film and the randomness imbued by the system adapting to the user’s living room.”

Once you watch the video, you’ll understand how cool this. Unfortunately it seems Xbox fans will need to wait a while before this idea is affordable.

Taylor Soper is a GeekWire staff reporter who covers a wide variety of tech assignments, including emerging startups in Seattle and Portland, the sharing economy and the intersection of technology and sports. Follow him @taylor_soper and email taylor@geekwire.com.

Comments

Guest

I’m probably the last to give a Microsoft project a thumbs up, but this really really needs to be put to market. Even if Microsoft has to take a hit initially, I think with the right patents on tech like this they’ll find it extends way beyond just the Xbox. Boeing could implement this for their similators, the military and police for training, professional racing teams (think F1 budgets) for training. There are endless opportunities. If Microsoft does not move forward with utilizing this tech they are in worse shape than I thought.

Akohome

This is why Microsoft is different from Apple. Apple would put it in the market, charge more and be heaped with praise for innovation…..at least the apple of the past.